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Extend Keyboard and Mouse with Synergy

by KW · Comments (0)

May 10 2013

Last August I wrote about a utility called Mouse Without Borders, developed in Microsoft’s “The Garage”, that allows you to use one keyboard and mouse to control multiple computers. And the utility works very great.

That is, unless you also have Linux or Mac OS X computers which you also want to control with a single keyboard and mouse.

So, here comes Synergy which offers to extend your mouse and keyboard to all three environments. And did I say that it is FREE??

I decided to take it for a spin today, and I was quite surprised at how easy it was to install and run it. For this first effort, I only installed it on two Windows computers. At a later date I will post my efforts to include a Linux or Mac workstation.

My scenario: I have a Windows 7 x86 workstation with three monitors, and a Windows 2008R2 x64 server, running Hyper-V.

INSTALL/SETUP FIRST WORKSTATION

My mouse and keyboard that I wish to use is on my Win7 workstation. So I first downloaded the Windows 32-bit version of Synergy and installed it. I designate this as my Synergy “server”.

It then asks what type on encryption I wish to use. That’s a really nice feature as it does provide some protection from anyone trying to intercept your keystrokes. You have a choice of four (4) different encryption modes, or you can disable encryption. For purposes of testing, I chose to not enable encryption.

The only other step to do is to click on the Configure Server… button. You will have a screen where you can describe your setup, indicating in which direction the monitor for each of the other workstation(s) is located.

INSTALL/SETUP ON NEXT WORKSTATION

In this case, my second workstation (which Synergy refers to as a client) is running Windows Server 2008 R2 x64. I am also running Hyper-V manager on this server, so I decided to install the Synergy client to the Hyper-V parent, so I can control all of my Hyper-V guests.

So I download and install the 64 bit version of Synergy, and install it. This time, when it asks Server or Client, I’ll select “Client”. Then you need to tell the Synergy client the name of the computer that is the “Synergy “server”.

I thought I was all done, but my mouse would not move over to the monitor attached to my server. At first I thought it was a firewall issue, but turning off the firewall on the W2K8R2 server did not fix it. In fact, if you check the firewall settings, you will find that Synergy had automatically added the proper Inbound TCP and UDP rules.

I then checked Services, and discovered that the Synergy service had not yet been started.

After doing so, I immediately saw that Synergy was communicating between the two computers, and my single mouse and keyboard was now controlling both computers!

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Categories : News, Servers, Tools, Windows

Tags : Synergy, Tools

Space Monger is still alive!

by KW · Comments (0)

Apr 24 2013

A good (I.T.) friend of mine reminded me of a utility from the past called SpaceMonger.

What is Space Monger? It’s a free tool that gives you a graphical picture of your entire disk, with larger files and folders easily identified. The nice thing is that Space Monger does not need to be installed. The executable can be run from a thumb drive!

Here are two screen snapshots from my drive:

You can download Space Monger from my web site. The zip file includes the free version 1.4 executable and the ReadMe file.

The trick to using it, I was told is:

Run it with elevated permission (Run as administrator)
Always open the folders, and not any applications from within it.

If you’re looking for something a bit fancier, but still free, check out WinDirStat!

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Categories : Tools, Windows

Tags : Tools

View Hidden Devices in Device Manager

by KW · Comments (0)

Apr 20 2013

By default, Device Manager (devmgmt.msc) does not provide the option to “Show Hidden Devices”. You’ve probably know the steps to enable this option:

Open a command prompt in (Run as) administrator mode
Type the following two commands:
set devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices=1
start devmgmt.msc
Once Device Manager starts up, you can click View –> Show Hidden Devices

But if your working on a server and need to review the full list of devices, doing the above steps is not very productive. THere’s a way to set this option permanently, entering it as a system variable. Here are the steps for Windows 2008 R2, but the same variable can be created in other versions of Windows.

Click Start
Right click on Computer, then click Properties
Click on the Advanced System Settings in the left frame
Under the Advanced tab, click on Environment Variables…
Click New
For the Variable name, type: devmgr_show_nonpresent_devices
For the Variable value, type: 1
Click OK

That’s it! Here’s a screen shot of the above process:

Now, any time you access Device Manager on this server, the Show Hidden Options will be available from the View options

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Categories : Servers, Tools, Windows

Tags : Tools

DISM for Windows Server 2008 R2 (64 Bit)

by KW · Comments (0)

Apr 15 2013

DISM is a command-line Microsoft tool for Windows 7/8/2008/2012. DISM stands for ‘Deployment Image Servicing and Management’. If you do a search for dism.exe you will find many posts of people using it to reduce the size of their WinSxS folder, especially after installing SP1. There is a 32-bit and a 64-bit version of this tool.

The actual command to do this cleanup is: dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded

So, you are sitting at the console of a Windows 2008 R2 x64 server, and you want to run this utility. Chances are, you will try to use the dism.exe that is listed inside the c:\Windows\SysWow64 folder.

However, if you do so, you may encounter the following error message: Error: 11 You cannot service a running 64-bit operating system with a 32-bit version of DISM. Please use the version of DISM that corresponds to your computer’s architecture.

In order to run this properly, you need to go directly to the native system folder to run this tool on a 64 bit system. Here are the steps:

Open command prompt window as administrator (‘Run as’).
Change directory by typing: cd \windows\system32
Run the command: dism.exe /online /cleanup-image /spsuperseded

This will take about ten minutes to run. Please note that even after the progress bar reaches 100.0%, the tool has not finished running. Do NOT close the command prompt window until you get the message “The operation completed successfully”.

What is the result of running this tool? I ran this on a Windows 2008 R2/SBS 2011 server, and it reduced the size of the WinSxS folder from 10.8GB to 7.37GB.

Not very drastic if you ask me. Not with today’s disk sizes. However, if you are running out of disk space on your server system drive, this might buy you some needed room!

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Categories : SBS, Servers, Tools, Windows

Tags : Tools

Case Study–Windows Server 2012 Essentials

by KW · Comments (0)

Apr 05 2013

My good friend and MVP buddy, Wayne Small of Australia, was the focus of a recent Microsoft case study on the features and benefits of implementing a mixed cloud/on-premise solution to customers.

The article details Wayne’s approach, using Windows Server 2012 Essentials (the follow-on product to the highly successful Small Business Server) and Office 365.

He explains how this winning combination helps to address the needs of many of his customers, and discusses the benefits of deploying Windows Server 2012 Essentials.

Congratulations, Wayne!

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Categories : Essentials, News, SBS, Servers, Windows

Tags : Essentials

Add KB 2775511 to WSUS

by KW · Comments (0)

Mar 14 2013

In a previous blog, I described how to locate, download and install the hotfix rollup (KB 2775511) – a rollup of 90 hotfixes that will improve performance and stability to Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 2008 R2 SP1 systems.

As noted in the previous blog, this hotfix rollup is NOT automatically available via WSUS. However, it is very easy to add this rollup to WSUS for distribution to your workstations and servers.

From your server hosting WSUS, open up the WSUS Console (Start –> Administrative Tools –> Windows Server Update Services
Click to select your server from the left hand frame, and then click Import Updates… from the right hand frame
This will open up the Microsoft Update Catalog site in a new browser window. In the Search box, enter 2775511 and click the Search button
Click the Add All button, and then click View Basket
The screen refreshes, and the option “Import directly into Windows Server Update Services” is displayed and checked. Go ahead and click on the Import button. Wait until the download completes and then click Close.
The KB will appear in WSUS list of updates after the update check has run on each workstation/server, and you can approve/schedule it accordingly.
And for SBS servers, the KB update can be found in the SBS Console (Security –> Updates) for scheduling.

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Categories : News, Servers, Windows

Tags : Updates

Hotfix Rollup for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 2008 R2 SP1

by KW · Comments (0)

Mar 13 2013

On March 13, 2013 Microsoft released KB 2775511. They refer to this as “an enterprise hotfix rollup” for Windows 7 SP1 and Windows 2008 R2 SP1. This rollup contains 90 hotfixes that have been issues since the release of SP1 for Windows 7/Windows 2008 R2.

The chatter on this release is that a lot of work went into this rollup, and that you definitely want to be looking at this for your customers and your own systems. Microsoft says that this hotfix rollup improves the overall performance and system reliability of Windows 7/Windows 2008 R2 SP1 systems.

One small example: I installed it on my own Windows 7 workstation and saw a dramatic improvement in boot time.

Now, for whatever reason, you will NOT find this hotfix rollup on Microsoft Update (MU) or Windows Update (WU) or on WSUS. That’s correct – you will NOT find it there. Instead, you will find it on the Microsoft Update Catalog download site. I know … I’m with you on this one as I didn’t know about this site myself.

But lets stop gabbing and get to downloading and installing the rollup!

You can read the details about this rollup here: KB 2775511
Or go straight to the Microsoft Update Catalog site
In the Search box, enter 2775511 and click Search
The list of available files are displayed. There are separate versions of this hotfix rollup for Windows 7/x86, Windows 7/x64, Windows 2008 R2 x64, and Windows 2008 R2 Itanium.
Click on the Add button for those versions you want.
After that, click on the Download button and choose your desired drive/folder location to store the downloads.
For each version, a folder is created with two files in it — a .exe file and a .msu file.
Double click on the appropriate .msu file to install the hotfix.
Install and reboot your system. That’s it!

Now, for those who like to do performance measurement, there’s a tool called XPerf you may want to take a look at. There’s a nice blog post on using XPerf to measure Slow Boot Slow Logon (SBSL) scenarios

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Categories : News, SBS, Servers, Windows

Tags : Updates

Calcheck – Microsoft’s Calendar Checking Tool

by KW · Comments (0)

Mar 07 2013

While working on a user issue with calendar items syncing properly, I came across this free Microsoft utility called CalCheck (how original!) that they released in 2012. They say that this utility works with Outlook 2003/2007/2010 and Exchange 2003/2007/2010.

Please note – this utility does NOT fix anything. Rather, it looks for calendar items that may be corrupted, creates a log file report, and optionally move those items to a separate Outlook folder for you to review.

INSTALL THE SOFTWARE:

Download the CalCheck utility to your workstation, and unzip the file
Locate and run CalCheck.exe with admin privileges (Run As…)
When finished, locate and review the CalCheck.log file that was created.

It appears that most Calendar item issues flagged are associated with one of the scenarios described in Microsoft’s KB 2714118 (“Calendar items that are copied are missing in Exchange Server 2007”)

I’ll report back on my findings as it relates to the issue at hand.

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Categories : Exchange, Windows

Tags : Outlook

eM Client – Outlook replacement?

by KW · Comments (0)

Mar 06 2013

So, when your neighbor or family member decided to purchase a new PC, how long did it take for them to discover that Outlook Express is not available on Windows 7?

And when they called you to complain, what direction did you turn for a replacement email client? Thunderbird? Eudora? Windows Live Mail? something else? Well, there are pros and cons to each of the above alternatives.

ENTER EM CLIENT!

A fellow MVP’er recently suggested that I take a look at eM Client. And I must admit, I’m quite impressed with it at first glance.

PLEASE NOTE:

eM Client does not interface with Exchange. Second, eM Client has both a free and Pro (paid) version. The free version is more than suitable for the family member or neighbor you might have in mind.

GO AHEAD AND INSTALL IT!

Yes, go ahead and download and run the eM Client install utility. It runs on both Windows 7 & 8.
Click to Agree to the EULA, and click to Install.
Once installed, decide whether to make eM Client your default mail application, and then click Finish.

CONFIGURING IT IS EASY!

When eM Client starts up the first time, you can select which theme to use. I went with the default Modern theme. Click Next.
You can then choose whether to import email accounts and data from either Microsoft Outlook or Windows Live Mail, or you can select to Skip Import, which is what I did on my computer, and then click Next. However, I installed eM Client on another computer that has Outlook 2007, and the import feature brought over both the data and email settings.
You can choose to let it do an Automatic Setup, by entering your email address and password. Or you can click on the Mail option and set things up manually. eM Client includes support for Gmail, Hotmail, Yahoo, and AOL, as well as standard POP3 or IMAP mail accounts.
For my first test, I created a new email address on one of my web sites, with a mail server that supports both POP3 and IMAP. From the eM Client window, I entered my email address and password, clicked a couple of buttons, and voila! we are up and running.

EM CLIENT FEATURES

You can read the long list of features for yourself from the eM Client website. I’ll just point out three things right now:

The first feature is that it looks like Outlook (without the Ribbon Line)!
The second feature is that I imported an email account with a default PST file nearly 7GB in size, plus an archive PST file over 4GB in size, and it all imported fine – mail, calendar, contacts and tasks!
The third feature I like is that eM Client includes a built in backup utility, that can be configured and runs via Windows Task Scheduler. Yes, no big deal to most of us, but it sure is a nice feature for my neighbor!

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Categories : News, Windows

Tags : Outlook

Setup Tracking Protection for Internet Explorer

by KW · Comments (0)

Mar 04 2013

Internet Explorer (IE) version 9/10 has a feature called Tracking Protection. Paul Thurrott covers the details of this feature in his blog post. By enabling Tracking Protection, chances are you will also see a performance boost when browsing the Internet.

So here are the quick steps for implementing Tracking Protection:

Open up IE9/IE10 and click on Tools –> Safety –> Tracking Protection. This will open up the Tracking Protection section of Manage Add-ons.

Please note: whenever you change or add something to Tracking Protection, you may need to close and re-open the Tracking Protection in order to see your changes.
Click “Your Personalized List” and click the Enable button. This will tell IE to automatically generate an internal tracking protection list based on your browsing habits.
After enabling, click on “Settings for this list…” and it will display for you URL’s (based on your browsing history) that you may wish to block.
Close and then reopen Tracking Protection and you will now see a new option “Get a Tracking Protection online….”. Click on this link and from the new window that opens up, select one or more third party tracking protection lists. Then Click Add –> Add List, then close and reopen Tracking Protection.